Ymir looked good in a suit. She looked good in a lot of things, but in a suit? Killer. Ladykiller, specifically. With some nerf darts tossed in instead of bullets to keep the paranoid father figures happy. She looked good, and if the past week had taught anyone anything, Historia liked her looking good more than she liked whatever was zooming across her phone screen.
Historia opening the door and staring at her for a solid ten seconds should have been an evening highlight. One of those memories her head set up private viewings of for a fortnight of dreams hot enough to beat global warming to melting the ice caps.
There was the whole thing of Historia opening the door and staring at her for a solid ten seconds that up and interfered with that.
Fancy parties meant fancy dress. She mostly grew up living in a tailor's house; she understood the glamour life, and saw more pretty dresses and suits in an evening of clearing out the attic than anyone ever needed to play witness to.
Historia, accompanied by herself, would be going to a fancy party tonight. Ergo, fancy dress.
The Historia of it all still gave her some pause. Something about divinity enshrined in a human girl who shown like the sun bothering to come out to play for a little bit. There wasn't preparation for shit like this. The experience came in like a wrecking ball, and Ymir was standing on the front porch like every dumbass schmuck in every teenage romcom ever.
Because wow.
Historia was barefoot—and Ymir didn't have that fetish but she was starting to see the appeal—and wearing some kind of sleeveless, silk white top streaked with patterns of gold so thin the light barely caught them. The seams over her shoulders were laces, made of what might have been actual lace, leaving gaps for skin and Ymir's tongue maybe. The black skirt mostly looked like a more expensive version of what she wore every day to school, but what she looked like every day at school was still a vision.
Then to top it all off, somehow, the glittery blue wing Ymir had drawn on her cheek had survived their full day of separation in pristine condition.
She was also staring. Because Ymir looked good in a suit.
Custom dictated something about whose job it was to speak first here. Stepford suburbia custom was less picky, and enthusiastic lying went hand in hand with the opening door, but they'd missed that cue, and besides, Ymir was less than clear on where a mansion in the middle of nowhere fell into that.
She did know that Kenny was watching. "You planning on inviting me in?"
Historia's body jerked laterally back into a plane of existence where she wasn't undressing Ymir with her eyes. Tragic, but Ymir was more into a hands-on approach anyway.
"Hi," Historia said. Not stepping out of the doorway for a solid second of aftermath. When she did remember to move, it was the closest to tripping Ymir had ever seen from her.
"Hey," Ymir said back. She walked through the guest house threshold, downing the first barrier of the night and stepping into the tribute to excessive personal wealth. All white marble everywhere, sometimes with gold trimming. "Nice place."
"Thanks," Historia said. She pushed the door shut, and the warning of Kenny's watching eyes left.
The two of them were alone.
Oh hell.
Ymir's palms didn't fall prey to mundane weaknesses like sweat, but they did feel a little like they'd temporarily expanded to Porco sized slabs of meat instead of the exquisite tools they were. She thrust the manners bouquet out in front of her.
"For your mother," she said, before Historia could think for a single second that the concoction was for her. "My foster dad thinks that checking off meaningless gestures is how you don't get thrown out of parties, and he's in favor of us having a good time."
Under the bright lights of the glorious guest house, the flowers looked even more washed out than Ymir could have hoped, but they felt like a wimpy shield against Historia's cursory inspection.
"She'll hate them," Historia said. "She had a florist plan out the entire house. No room for anything extra." Her wandering eyes strayed back to Ymir, very below where Ymir's were. More quietly, she added, "Thank you."
The night could have ended there and Ymir would have called it a major win. Her heart flipped and flopped weirdly in her chest, too large and squishable to stand a chance.
"So," Ymir said. The ludicrous amount of marble meant the harmless syllable echoed. "We have an hour all to ourselves. Did you have anything in particular planned for us, or is it all improv from here on out?"
Something like panic spawned behind Historia's eyes before it was ruthlessly shoved further back. "I could show you the house?" she said. With about as much interest as the question mark implied.
Ymir, being a good guest, said, "Sure."
Oppressive silence was not something Ymir dealt with, but if she didn't know enough about architecture to dispute it, she'd say that the guest house was forged from nothing but extracting that crucial element from all of the guests it had entombed in its—based on the modern HGTV fixtures—very short life.
Historia was right next to her, which killed off most of the bad vibes, but Ymir's nerves were playing to Pock's rhythm, not hers, and every time she looked at Historia in her skirt, they went north of haywire.
Her hair was up. Like it was during cheerleader practice, but without all the sweaty tangles. The smooth blonde looked like it had gone liquid in its softness, and the whole trek up the stairs with her ponytail bobbing up and down was distracting and messing with Ymir's palms and she had no idea what the fuck was happening to her swag but she needed it back.
"My uncle lives here," Historia said suddenly, offering Ymir a foothold.
"He needed a place to stay after the cult mishap?"
Historia's eyes darted to Ymir. Ymir smirked. "Pieck mentioned it," she said. So did about a dozen Lenz articles. "Not in detail, but enough to make it sound like a fun story."
Historia shrugged. Parts of her either needed to stop moving or never stop. Ymir's hormones were fighting a losing battle with themselves. "I don't know much about it," Historia said, "but that's why I transferred out of boarding school. I drank the Kool-Aid."
That brought some sobriety back into the picture. "You were part of your uncle's crazy cult?"
"What?" Historia's hair whipped around, landing to a rest on top of her shoulder. "Oh. No, I meant… I was at his apartment when the police raided it. It was before a meeting, and he had Kool-Aid out. It was after practice, so I drank some." She paused before continuing. "My parents didn't appreciate the rumors that caused, so they had me switch schools."
She didn't need to say whose sake that was for. Historia had a very telling tone when it came to her family. Ymir probably should have asked after that, and played some of the compassionate consideration cards she kept a stock of specifically for this girl, but there was one tiny part of that tale that needed clarification first. "Your uncle served Kool-Aid at his illegal cult meetings."
Historia waited a few more steps. "Uncle Uri has a sweet tooth."
"Babe," Ymir said, "that does not make it sound any better."
Surface annoyance won Ymir a beautiful side eye. "He wasn't hurting anyone," Historia said. "He just…"
"Ran an illegal cult."
"Yes."
"Just checking, but this is one of the two family members you like?"
Slightly more than surface annoyance dug in. "Yes."
"Groovy," Ymir said. "So he's the one I want to be nice to tonight."
Historia's shoulders went positively rigid. "He doesn't have an invitation," she said shortly.
Ymir, walking past a section of photo wall, where there were a dozen or so pictures of what she assumed to be the remaining Reisses, all smiling and hugging happily, couldn't help but make the obvious comment. "Even though he lives here?"
"Yes."
Ymir made the other obvious comment. "Your parents are bitches."
Historia relaxed, and her deeply aggressive expression of neutrality melted, taking what was left of Ymir's higher cognitive function with it. "Yes," she affirmed.
There was a dangerous moment, between being halfheartedly shown Uri's office and halfheartedly shown the room Historia kept in the guest house that her parents didn't want her to have thanks to her uncle's 'corrupting influence,' where Ymir realized that even if Historia kept to that one word for the rest of the evening, she'd be okay with reading the rest of their conversation on her face.
That wasn't a thing that bore thinking about.
She was thinking about it.
For all the parental talk Ymir had with Historia, she'd never really pictured meeting her parents, except to maybe introduce her fists to their faces. Meeting the parents was something girlfriends did, or friends, or otherwise non-sex buddies, or people who actually gave a damn about their parents' thoughts on who they hung out with.
If she'd bothered to picture it, it would not have been two zombie-eyed people in their Sunday best waving hello to their daughter, their daughter's date, and informing them both of the seating chart before striding off to talk to one of the waiters.
"This is Ymir," Historia had said, in the middle of no one else acknowledging Ymir's presence.
"My date," she had added, when that only got vague nods and a pushy reminder to please be sure to sit in the appropriate space. Somewhere down the line, her fingers had tangled themselves with Ymir's, and that didn't even make the list of surreal out of body experiences the Reisses caused in the course of a single conversation.
"Very nice to meet you," Mr. Reiss had said. To Historia, he'd added, "It's good you're making friends."
That was it. That was Ymir's involvement in the hellos, which could not more plainly be goodbyes. Historia's mother had barely said thank you for the flowers. An irritated line that might have once been a mouth had formed on her face, and she'd handed them off to some gloved individual in a suit who looked deader than she did.
"Holy shit," Ymir had breathed, standing alone in the house's grand entrance hall, next to a Historia who was vibrating with her proximity to intense violence. "Lenz undersold it."
Walking to their assigned seat in the ball room, which said everything Ymir could ever think about what those people were, Historia hadn't said a word. Opposite the hand holding Ymir's, enough muscle backed her tiny fist that if she'd had her phone, it would have been in smithereens.
That gave Ymir a little too much time to look around the place.
More white, more gold, more chandeliers than heads they could drops on, full of more crystal and light bulbs than anyone in the history of ever needed, and family photographs as far as the eye could see.
They weren't like the ones in Historia's uncle's prison yard.
They reminded her of homes she'd been in, before Kenny decided to play hero. Here are our blood children, whom we love dearly. Over there, if you squint, you will find our charity cases.
If Ymir squinted, she could see a few shots of Historia tucked away.
She hoped Mrs. Reiss fucking hated her flowers.
Quiet seething being the theme of the night, they were both seated around a table clothed in an immaculate white tablecloth before Ymir judged that Historia had crossed over into the realm of sulking, and as devastatingly hot as the extra tension made her calves look in those heels, Ymir wasn't playing arm candy so Historia could ignore her for her terrible parents the whole night long.
"I meant it when I offered you up my body for the night," she said. "Feel free to do whatever you want with it." She carefully inserted a dramatic pause, letting Historia jolt fully back to the present. "You'll probably have a better time with that if you don't forget I exist."
Historia immediately tore her hand out of Ymir's—which, rude—and flashed it down to where she quickly realized the pocket containing her phone wasn't. She closed her eyes and took a long, silent breath.
"Sorry," she muttered.
"Thanks," Ymir said.
She eyed the hand dangling between them for a moment, decided what the hell, she needed to do it before the doors opened and the awful parents were joined by awful party guests anyway, and grabbed it.
Historia tried to lace their fingers together the instant they touched, but Ymir slipping in the gift she brought along for reasons outside of some skewed view of propriety stopped the movement. She looked down, confused, and Ymir pulled back.
She'd found it in one of Porco's drawers, since it'd used to be Levi's drawer. Foster dad of the decade didn't know how to throw anything out, and was paranoid enough to keep a ready stock of batteries for every device he had ever owned, and several he wouldn't be caught dead with.
"Since you can't ditch us all with your phone tonight, I thought you could use the next best thing," Ymir said. The fiery glint of candle lighting their table caught the orange plastic in Historia's hand and gleamed.
Tamagotchis were a blight upon the planet and Ymir was a hopeless deviant for thinking they had any value whatsoever, Pock had once shouted, pretending not to be traumatized by that one time he went to summer camp and forgot his under his bed.
From the burst of warmth that hit Historia's eyes and washed over Ymir like an anvil, she'd say that Porco's opinion was, as usual, unique to him and not something that needed listening to.
Historia swapped it to her other hand and returned to holding Ymir's. Gently, this time, without the barely repressed rage. Ymir, whose usual pattern with Historia was to keep her eyes on her at all times even when she was burning brighter than the edge of a solar eclipse, found herself observing the table.
There was a chance she was in trouble.
She took her luck where she could, and said a silent prayer of thanks to no one when the doors opened and the partygoers arrived before Historia could do more than look at her like that.
What Historia's parents had failed to mention, in keeping with their need to hold the record for worst ever of all time, yes even then, was that the seating chart was designed with only two guests in mind. One, really, when taking into account Ymir's near-invisibility in their eyes.
So while everyone else happily mingled with their friends and took the seats that made their cold, dead hearts smile most, Historia just happened to be seated right next to the buffet table. Also known, to the more sophisticated company of the evening, as the less obvious bar.
Someone would have to work up the heart to tell them that when their alcohol tolerance was that low, nothing could keep it from being obvious. Ymir had a hunch she was going to be the someone.
Placed so close to the only action the evening was providing, some other things started to become obvious.
"Oh Historia, we're so happy to see you out again. After that business with that uncle of yours…"
"Public school. Well, it looks like you're making it work. You'll be off to college in no time."
"I hear you kept up cheerleading! Very fine, very fine!"
"Is this your friend? Oh sweetheart, look at that! She's made a friend!"
"Awful, awful business."
"What is that on your cheek? Does public school not let you use soap?"
"You look five seconds away from murder, but it's very important to your parent to give all of their friends who hate them a chance to say that their daughter has survived her ordeal with her evil uncle, so nice that you're seated right next to the buffet so no one misses out on saying it."
Ymir was paraphrasing.
Historia was seething and providing color commentary whenever they were given a moment's peace.
"Dimo Reeves," she said, pointing out a tired man keeping a firm grasp on a younger, less tired man. "He broke so many factory regulations last month that he had to pay one of the fines. His son got kicked out of school for stealing a goat, so he transferred to the school he stole the goat from."
"Mr. Grice is in politics. He uses every one of these things as a fundraiser."
"Theo Magath. He's sleeping with the baseball player who lent Petra Ral the baseball bat she used to destroy one of the Fritzes' cars."
"That's Nile Dok and his wife. He covered for Petra. He hates parties. He only comes because his in-laws talk about him when he doesn't."
"That's Kiyomi." Historia went back to watching her Tamagotchi more than the room with great deliberation. "Stay away from Kiyomi."
What she didn't say about any of them was how half the crowd's beady eyes were on Ymir. Ymir wasn't going to bother pointing it out. At regular intervals, Historia squeezed her hand with too much mindlessness to be unintentional. If Ymir were a generous, kind-minded person, she would have blamed the flames that were still in her hair from the failed experiment known as spirit week. She'd debated over whether it would be better or worse to touch up the fading dye, and if her role of the evening was to be better or worse, then her good memory made the choice for her. Historia had told her the flames looked nice that first day. Ez. The back of her head was lit up like a candle.
Ymir was not a generous, kind-minded person, and while Historia shamed all of the guests with past crimes, Ymir watched the body language and reported back on which echelons of upper society were lying their asses off to their conversation partners.
Spoilers: It was most of them.
"We should steal all their money and run away together," Ymir said absently as a tall, skinny guy auditioning for the role of Slenderman what with how many scarves he'd draped over himself ordered one of the servers passing by to fetch him a drink.
"…I have money," Historia said.
Her heart needed to stop hopping up and down every time Historia talked. Ymir's throat dried, again, and she took a nonchalant chug of water, again. The waiter who kept magically sliding into existence to fill her cup had taken to sending her encouraging smiles, which she did not need. If he had any eyes at all he'd see that she was owning the handholding without anyone's help.
"Are you really going to kill my dream of pulling off a heist? Really, Historia? You're gonna be that girl?"
Historia's mouth twitched briefly out of its stormy scowl. Ymir's heart continued to do the thing. She'd never been gladder to be away from Pock and Pieck.
Diverting her attention, because the eclipse metaphor was applicable in all the wrong ways tonight, Ymir went back to making fun of the rich people she wasn't on a mission to bang.
Her eyes caught trouble.
Squeezing Historia's hand for attention, and because she could, she played lookout. "Sophisticated blondie, six o'clock. Nice suit and hair that looks like it's trying to copy yours." She glanced at the hair in question, since how could she not. "Doesn't come close."
Her carefully chosen words of charm had zero effect. Historia had turned around and brought an arctic tundra with her.
"Willy Tybur," was all she said.
Before Ymir could ask if that was the same Tybur whose sister had mauled a lady with her stiletto, the man whose name would have been pronounced in caps even if names weren't written that way was upon them.
"Historia!" he said with enough bright cheer and familiarity that Ymir very strongly understood Historia's radiating desire to see him in a trash compactor. "It's good to see you looking so well. Some of us were worried that you'd never see the light of day again after being sent away to that school of yours."
He smiled like he had once met a Marcel and liked the look.
Meanwhile, in a show of affection Ymir did not know what to do with, Historia placed the Tamagotchi on the table before her hand destroyed it. Her grip on Ymir's stopped shy of bone-crushing.
Ymir wasn't sure what it was that made her speak up. There were a lot of options, all in keeping with the dignified consort feel she was vibing. What she was sure of was that this was a guy whose tears would definitely work as an aphrodisiac.
"I think you've got that backwards," Ymir said politely. "Boarding school is the one where they throw children in dungeons and let them play with rats. Public school's legally required to release people."
His smile turned on her. "True enough. I can't tell you how many of my classmates would have benefitted from fresh air. We're all hoping this will be a healing experience for Historia."
"Because you're so concerned."
"Naturally," he said. "I know how close she and Uri were. Such a public rupture… in our lives I'm afraid such encounters are inevitable, but we would all prefer them to be less grim. Frieda always worried—"
The dots connected, and Historia was standing from her chair, twisting around so she wasn't letting go of Ymir's hand. "Don't talk about my sister," Historia said, voice like oddly erotic thunder. "Our lives aren't your concern."
Willy raised his hands in peace. It wasn't very effective. "I'm sorry, Historia," he said with a sincerity he probably believed. "All I meant is that I'm glad to see you're doing okay. I know this has all been very rough on you." He smiled at Ymir. "I'm sure your lady friend would agree."
Now.
Ymir did not, in concept, have a problem with Historia straight up murdering a dude. She would even go as far as to say that it would be really fucking hot, and very little had been done to suggest the victim wouldn't deserve it. She also had fewer problems with being called Historia's lady friend than she was in a rush to examine.
She still figured the best thing to do in this case was to grab Historia before she could try to body slam someone twice her size, and if it put her in the position of holding Historia's entire body directly against hers, that was all good.
Really good.
Historia's very stiff back and charging feet stilled, and Ymir was not giving this guy a free peep show, so instead of pulling her girl even closer and spinning her around, she ducked her chin on top of Historia's angelically soft hair and grinned.
"I'd say I'm the only one who gets to be rough on her these days, Mr. Tybur," she said. Politely. Trying not to feel too smug about the dull flush of red in Historia's non-blue cheek. "Thanks for dropping by."
To his limited credit, Willy seemed to spot the deathflags in his future if he stuck around. He smiled congenially, and gave his head a little tip that made Ymir think he probably walked around wearing a stupid hat usually. "I hope you both have a pleasant evening. It has been a… pleasure, miss."
He walked away without taking anything from the table. Just as well.
That left Ymir with a very dolled up, very hotly angry Historia in her arms. With neither of them in a particular hurry to change any of those factors. Ymir liked holding her. She was small, but so warm, and solid, and made of silk.
Trouble. Nothing but trouble.
They stood there long enough for more judgmental staring from rude rich folk to pass their way. The joint venture of not giving a fuck felt like a real bonding moment.
Ymir tilted her head down to eye Historia.
"So he and your sister…"
Death was summoned to her angel's gaze. "Ymir."
"No judgment, I'm sure her dating pool couldn't have been that—"
Historia made a disgusted noise in the back of her throat and spun around, keeping Ymir's arms trapped snugly around her. She was really close. Funny how that happened. She was also in heels. Party. Rich douches. Dress clothes.
Her lips were a whole inch closer than Ymir was used to.
She was staring into Ymir's eyes, but the promise of a flicker downward fluttered by periodically. It turned the dial up on the blistering heat reigning behind her expression, and Ymir's ears burned. She still wanted to kiss her.
If they just kept staring at each other like this, magnetism would do the job for them. Something softer than the steel in Historia's gaze was peeling it back, and irritated focus was giving way to the same cloudy dusk that overtook her eyes in the gym.
She could kiss her. Historia would let her. Historia would kiss back.
Neither of them moved.
Their friendly waiter came by to refill their water. Historia's cup was just as empty as Ymir's. The soft clink of expensive ice cubes sounded a little like music, and Ymir had the bizarre thought that if they had stuck with homecoming, this would be the part where they danced. All night. Like this.
It almost sounded worth all the trouble of the stupid crowning, put like that.
Historia's head fell to Ymir's chest with a soft thump. Ymir took the chance to wrap her arms around Historia more fully, draping her hands over her skin and melting a little bit at the touch. With a pretty damningly defined hint of romo.
"Don't be an ass," Historia mumbled.
"No promises," Ymir said.
The alternative was admitting part of her soul was considering, a little, all the many, many, dignity impaired promises she would gladly make if it meant keeping Historia in her arms. The alternative sounded like a little much for them.
Like all good things, sometimes bad things came to an end too. Such was the case with Ymir's very first Reiss party. She'd had her fill of poisonously rich treats, kept her liver safe from the questing snares of alcohol, got Historia to stop looking like a pretty blonde storm cloud more than a few times, and made all sorts of people she didn't care for clutch their pearls in censure.
Now the hour was late, and it was time to ditch the losers and reunite with her kind of losers.
Most of the very annoying guests had lurked back into their Porsches by now, but a few had stuck around, and she could feel their eyes on the back of her head, wishing the flames were real.
Historia's hand, kept tight around hers, warded off a lot of the bad energy, but they both still knew to glare at all the right people. Ymir hoped Lenz did an article about each one personally. Rich people never got tired of adding one more cherry on top, and this was their shindig, so she felt entitled to a bit more fun before the end.
Lingering by the entryway, temptation was calling at her to create her own.
Some other feeling, the one that had been playing her heart like a bongo all night long, was already sketchily sidestepping off into the dark. It was annoying, but Ymir kept looking at Historia, kept thinking about how she had technically been her date, and now they were technically standing in the doorway before where they'd part ways, and sketchily sidestepping off into the dark felt exactly like what she had to do to keep from exploding.
After a much more expansive silence than they'd spent most of the night in, Historia spoke up.
"Do you want this back?"
She held out the orange Tamagotchi.
"Keep it," Ymir said. "Porco thinks it's Satan and no one else cares."
"Thank you."
More silence.
Ymir should never have let Marcel and Porco enter so many romcoms into the movie night pool. A good half of them were playing back through her head. Her palms were going traitor again.
Giving the tingling at the back of her neck a little more attention, she turned to locate one of the many eyes she'd felt on her all night. Two, but who was counting. It was something to do.
She hit the jackpot with the man of the moment. Halfway across the hall, he couldn't seem to decide which was more worthy of his glare; the clasped hands, the flame dye, the face paint, or just both of their pretty faces that close together.
After a night of being relatively good, Ymir took great joy in flipping him off.
"You said whatever?" Historia said abruptly.
Ymir jolted back to more squishy arenas of thought. "What?"
Historia was looking at her.
"For tonight," she said. "Whatever I want? With…" Her eyes trailed down. A very long length. Then up again.
Ymir was not physically pinned to a wall.
There was, however, a wall she was leaning against, and movement didn't seem to be happening. Unless the slow ease of Historia's body ever closer to hers counted. And she wasn't imagining it. She wasn't used to Historia at this height, after all. She was tiny. Typically very far away from Ymir. High heels were probably a major factor in some kinds of optical illusions.
"Yeah," Ymir heard herself say. "That's what I'm here for."
Historia was still looking at her.
All of her.
There was still a room of people, even if it wasn't full. Her curfew was up soon; they'd both be turning into pumpkins, or whatever pumpkin equivalent goddesses had.
The glitter on Historia's cheek winked up at Ymir.
How was she so damn beau—
Historia kissed her.